Sailors Scrimshaw Marine Ivory and Whalebone Walking Cane

A Fine Sailors Scrimshaw Marine Ivory and Whalebone Walking Cane
The shaft turned to resemble the tusk of a Narwhal. The handle carved in the form of a Turks-head knot with an inclined grip, with a baleen collar
Circa 1850-60

Size: 96cm long – 37¾ ins long

Everyone on board a whaling ship including the Captain and his wife were involved in what amounted to a veritable floating ‘cottage industry’. Keener members of the crew had their own special tools and miniature lathes. Herman Melville wrote in Moby Dick, (1851) Chapter 57 ‘some of them have little boxes of dentistical looking implements, specially intended for the skrimshandering business. But in general they toil with their jack knives alone; and with that almost omnipotent tool of the sailor they will turn you out anything you please in the way of mariner’s fancy’.